We Are all David Letterman

I joined the staff of my high school newspaper during my junior year, 1997. As I recall, the requirements to procure an A grade during this semester long course was to get one story published in the actual paper and demonstrate a general willingness to contribute to it’s bi-monthly production cycle. For me, and half my baseball team, this meant cajoling the first and only thing we wrote into an early edition and mailing it in for the remaining 16 or so weeks.

Sometimes it also meant getting a “press pass” to roam campus or hang out with our hall monitor with the lazy-eye, Gator, to talk about the NBA. All under the guise I was going to interview the stoners smoking pot in the parking lot of the church across the street, or some other hard hitting Cheyenne High School exposé.

The first and only story I wrote for our school paper was a tribute to David Letterman. (I asked my mom to go dig the original out of a box somewhere in her house so I could repost it here, but she couldn’t find it, which is insane because my mother saves all that kind of stuff)

I can’t remember everything I wrote for that adolescent tribute. I’m pretty sure I used the incredibly obvious and not-at-all inspired, Dave-Letterman-is-the-very-best-and-these-are-my-top-ten-reasons-why-I-believe-this-to-be-a-true-statement-of-fact, format.

I’m also sure I extolled the virtue of Dave’s ability to celebrate the absurd, find the humanity in the inane, shatter social norms, and turn quirky every day humans like Sirajul and Mijibar, Rupert from the Hello Deli, and Manny the diggity dank San Francisco hippie, into folk heroes. In the end, aren’t we all just caricatures of ourselves waiting to be given a stage? (I don’t think I drew that conclusion at 17 years old)

No individual has done more to shape my comedic sensibilities than David Letterman. I spent every summer night during high school sitting through the intolerable local news waiting for Dave to walk out in his khaki socks, loafers, and double breasted suit to tickle me with his sardonic jabbing or entice me with his nimble ability to drive home a prying and poignant line of questioning, demanding introspection from his guest, directly after some boyish self mockery or subversive monologue. Each night I anticipated something even more clever than the night before.

Before YouTube and Facebook, you had to catch the seminal cultural moments live. And I did! The Taco Bell drive through bit, the Beastie Boys performing Sabotage, the Steve Martin and Dave gay vacation skit, the stupid human trick where a guy shot milk out of his eye, and Bill Murray dressing up like a cowboy and answering every question with, “Well, I tell you what…”. I was there for all of it, as it was happening. You couldn’t afford to miss Letterman. Night after night Dave made staying up past midnight not only worth it, but thrilling and wonderful and fun.

I’m sitting here now watching the gleam in his eye as he introduces his son, sitting the audience, during his final show. I realize that Dave has been the go to source for me and my son to watch live music clips, or stupid pet tricks, or kid scientists. My son always gets a kick out of Dave any time he says something ironic to the musical act or the kids. “Are these your drums?” “How long have you been scientist?” He gets it.

One of our go to music clips is The Walkmen performing Juveniles. I feel like Letterman fans have kind of an unspoken bond. Way too proud to admit you felt a deep kinship with someone you’ve never met — a TV personality for crying out loud. Yet there we were with him, being stirred to emotion after 9–11, feeling genuine empathy during scandal, or heartache, or quadruple bypass surgery, or fatherhood. Or, like every music act that performed on his show, kinda hoping he would wander over to us, take notice, and offer a word of encouragement. With Letterman, “you’re one of us, or one of them.”